Welcome to the MHB Podcast. This is Michael Baun. And welcome to my thirteenth episode. Tonight I want to talk about free will. The discussion of free will is important because many of the leading atheistic worldviews claim that free will is an illusion. I think they try to make this claim because the Bible presents such a strong account of the development of free will and consciousness. As we will discover in this episode, claiming free will is an illusion is a weak position – possibly indefensible. Before we dismantle that position – let’s outline what it actually says.
The major theme behind the claim that free will is an illusion is that we all exist in a deterministic reality. In a deterministic reality, all of your choices are predicated on your genetic makeup or your environment. Essentially, you feel like you are making your own choices but what you are really doing is responding to your environment in accordance with how your DNA says you should respond. The consequence of a deterministic reality is that no individual is responsible for his or her actions. It’s that perceived lack of responsibility that makes this worldview particularly attractive to its adherents – and particularly dangerous to the stability of societies.
Why should I do the right thing if there is no law-giver and my DNA is designed for me to behave in a particular way anyway? Just love yourself and be free! That’s a nice thought, but when you have a nation of 330 million people expressing themselves and demanding that their surroundings promote their self expression you always end in fascism. Freedom depends on a moral structure of right and wrong behavior.
Is there a major motivation for adopting the position of a deterministic reality apart from not being culpable for your actions? Yes, there is. The atheist bastions himself in the idea that free will is an illusion because it allows him to tie the consciousness to the physical makeup of the body. It moves the consciousness out of spiritual territory and into biological territory. The atheist needs to do this or else he can’t explain how consciousness can exist in a reality where everything that exists is made of material and is reducible. Consciousness can’t be put under a microscope in a lab – and yet we all experience it as being real.
Ironically, it appears to be religious thought itself that deals the fatal blow to a deterministic reality. Consider: a belief system has the ability to modify what your preferences are and therefore change the outcomes of what you end up acting out in the world. But you get to choose which belief system. You can be atheist one morning, wake up the next morning and decide you want to convert to Christianity. That conversion will radically change how you see the world and all of the decisions that follow it. But it can only do that if you choose to believe it. You can see that there are some elements of determinism here (namely that your belief system determines your actions and how you see the world) but these elements of determinism don’t even show up on the scene until after the free will choice has been made.
So the idea is, you make a free will choice to follow the belief system and then the belief system determines your actions and perception. Here’s what’s interesting: the Bible said it would happen that way. When you accept Christ and turn towards God, you allow room in your heart for the Holy Spirit to indwell you. The Holy Spirit then guides you in your decision making, keeping you as close to the divine will of God as you can be. So according to Christian doctrine, you have the absolute free will choice to trust or reject God. Influence will rush into your consciousness as a result of either choice. God will influence you if you trust Him, the world will influence you if you reject Him.
What’s fascinating about the free will choice to trust or reject God is that it also happens to be the only thing in your life that no one can take from you. It’s like it’s divinely protected. Consider: your safety and security is dependent on your government – it can be taken from you. Your clothes, your job, essentially your entire identity can be taken from you. You can even be killed and have your life taken from you. But while you are alive, there are no circumstances in which your decision to trust or reject God can be taken from you. You could make an argument that trusting God is the only expression of free will that you have, in an ultimate sense. To love or to leave. And maybe that’s why the atheist does not see free will – because he does not believe in God.
Love is at the core of the Christian worldview and that is perhaps why science can never quite wrap around it. In a deterministic reality there is no love, no faith, and no hope. Because faith, hope and love each depend entirely on free will. If loving or rejecting God is the ultimate expression of free will – then it seems as if pack mentality or group identity is the ultimate expression of determinism. Consider the modern left-wing protests. Many, if not most, of the protesters are not even aware of what they are protesting or what their cause is. They are just doing it because everyone else is doing it and they want to identify with the group. This type of behavior is toxic to free thinking and seeks to destroy the free market of ideas. In group-think, it doesn’t matter what your ideas are if you appear foreign to the group.
In the end, it seems strange that the atheistic thinkers who suggest religion is brainwashing, are waging war on the one God who is the source of free thinking. Group identity and tribalism are the immediate result of godlessness. If you don’t have God then whose ideas rule the day? In order to carry weight in a nihilistic world of ideas – you have to have the biggest, most violent group. And then if you are in that group, you’re not allowed to think or say anything that goes against that group’s identity. Group identity is brainwashing at best, fascism at worst, and unstable in every sense. Free will exists and consciousness is as real as you are. It is part of the spirit – immaterial and extending beyond this world. The most important expression of free will you can make in your life is who you choose to follow.
And so I’d like to leave you by saying that I very much look forward to getting into the project of teaching through the Bible. I’m going to use the breadth of my understanding in various disciplines to pull as much wisdom out of the verses as I can. I hope it will be as fun and productive for you as it will be for me.
If you find this content valuable, feel free to share it and to use it in your own studies. If you’d like to support this podcast, you can do so at http://www.patreon.com/michaelhbaun. There is a link in the description. Your generosity goes a long way to promoting the growth of this enterprise and the cause of free speech. Thank you all for joining me this evening, and I will see you in the next episode.
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